The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) placed Visayas grid under yellow alert due to "emergency shutdown" and "unavailability" of some power plants on Wednesday.

In an advisory issued on Wednesday morning, the NGCP noted that Visayas grid will be under yellow alert status from 3 pm to 8 pm.

According to the NGCP, "a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement."

It stated that yellow alert was raised in Visayas grid due to the unavailability of Therma Visayas Inc.’s coal-fired power plant units 1 and 2, which has a capacity of 169 MW each, and the emergency shutdown of the Leyte Geothermal Power Plant Unit 3 (LGPP 3), which derated its capacity from 79.5 MW to 39.3 MW.

The NGCP reported that Visayas grid has an available capacity of 2,694 (megawatts) MW and a peak demand of 2,351 MW.

It also noted that 898.6 MW is unavailable to the grid as "14 plants have been in forced outage" while "14 others are running on derated capacities".

Despite the situation of the Visayas grid, the NGCP mentioned that "Luzon and Mindanao grids are under normal condition." Robina Asido/DMS